Pebbles in the pond

The Battle for Peña Trevinca

Volume 5, Issue 16Part 40 of the ongoing saga of The Great Being, the One Self that manifests as each of us.

We have been following the experiences of two Agents of Cosmic Intelligence, Melchizedek and Layla, here on a mission that started in 200,000 BC. They are now in a new life around 40,000 BC, in the mountains of northwestern Spain.

In the previous episode, Melchizedek as Blu began training the tribe in the fighting skills used by the invading tribe, which Layla as Ska had learned from the prisoner’s dreams. Meanwhile the women and slaves were making tools fashioned after those captured in the skirmish with Ja’s captors. Blu and Ska also learned much about the invader King, who led by convincing his tribe that “if we do not kill, we will be killed” and that only he could save them. Blu and Ska would soon meet up with this awakened rebel King. Earlier episodes.

The onslaught began quietly. Having studied the placement of guards for over a week, the other tribe was able to take them out in a stealthy manner without rousing a cry. Thus they were able to enter the lower camp in force before Blu and Ska’s tribe knew what was happening.

Blu and Ska were the first to suspect that the attack was imminent. They awoke nearly simultaneously shortly before dawn and pathed to one another that something was happening, then slipped away from their wives and met in the predawn mists. They then went to waken the King. By the time they got to his tent, all hell was breaking loose.

Everyone was waking up and making a lot of excited and fearful noise. Warriors were girding for battle while assuring their families and telling them to remain calm and follow the elders to higher ground. The King was shouting orders and moving his fighting men into their pre-trained positions.

Almost everyone had a ringside view of what was happening in the nearly-abandoned lower camp. The enemy had gotten into camp before any cries of warning had gone up, and all those above could see the slaughter going on down below. A few lucky tribespeople were hastily climbing up to the upper camp, not far ahead of the racing assault troops of the enemy who appeared to be aiming for a rapid penetration. Other groups of attacking soldiers had apparently been assigned to wipe out any remaining survivors below. There was no sign of taking prisoners.

Some of the traps had apparently worked, since groups of the enemy appeared to be trying to haul some of their own men out of the concealed pits that had been equipped with upward-pointing spears. One such group was in the King’s fake tent in the lower camp, assumed to be the place where the enemy King might go first. There were so many men around that spot, Blu and Ska wondered if perhaps the invading King had actually been impaled.

Blu held his artillerymen longer than they wanted to wait, to ensure that a large force of the enemy was coming up from the lower camp before he gave the order to attack. This consisted of pushing the large rocks they had set up along the rim so as to fall on the enemy by following the concave shape of the mountain at that point, possibly formed by a water chute long ago dried up. The rocks took out some of the enemy and appeared to demoralize and scare the rest, and there was a moment when it looked as if the tide might have turned.

Suddenly a horrible noise arose as an avalanche of rocks erupted and whole pieces of the mountain rearranged themselves amazingly, burying the camp below and killing untold numbers of both tribes.

The tribespeople in the upper camp convulsed in coughing, their eyes burning and tearing, as immense amounts of dust rose up from the massive catastrophe. What good can be drawn from this hellish cost in human suffering? Melchizedek wondered, and Layla pathed back Maybe at least the war is over?

But within an hour it was clear that the enemy army had not been wiped out. It had reorganized itself and was coming to get them.